from maine, angus king, the newly elected senator-elect king. senator, you chose, i think, yesterday, you announced that you're going to caucus with the democrats. if so, why? >> well, i basically, throughout the campaign, said i had two criteria for coming down and making that decision, if i had to make the decision at all. the first thing i thought about which chris matthews suggested on "hardball" last summer was don't caucus with anybody, just stay totally independent, put your chair in the middle of the aisle, don't take a committee assignment. and the problem with that is, i'd be ineffective as a senator. that wouldn't really be fair to maine. and i thought about that option, but it just didn't make sense as we looked into the senate rules, particularly in connection with committee assignments. so then my criteria was, number one, how can i maintain the maximum area of independents, and yet at the same time be an effective senator? and i had a series of conversations starting with joe lieberman and bernie sanders, asking them how they were